Democratic lawmakers call for release of Tufts student from Ice detention
Source: The Guardian
Fri 25 Apr 2025 13.02 EDT
Last modified on Fri 25 Apr 2025 13.36 EDT
A group of high-profile Democratic lawmakers has called on the Donald Trump administration to immediately release the Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, praised her “unwavering spirit” and warned that the White House is engaging in “repression”.
In a New York Times essay published on Friday morning, the US senator Ed Markey and representatives Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley, who all represent Massachusetts, where Tufts is based, shared more details from their visit to Öztürk this week at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center in Louisiana, where she has been held since her arrest last month.
“She was inadequately fed, kept in facilities with extremely cold temperatures and denied personal necessities and religious accommodations” and has “suffered asthma attacks for which she lacked her prescribed medication” the lawmakers wrote. “Despite all this” they added, “we were struck by her unwavering spirit.”
The lawmakers were part of a delegation of congressional Democratic lawmakers who traveled to Louisiana this week to visit both Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil, the recent Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist who is also being held in Ice custody at a separate facility in Louisiana.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/25/trump-tufts-rumeysa-ozturk-ice